What did Kayleigh McEnany get so wrong that even Fox News shut her down? Getting pulled
off the air mid-sentence is all in a day's work for the former White House press secretary.
Before she made it to the White House as press secretary,
McEnany had already made a name for herself as a vocal defender of
Republican politics as the Republican National Committee's spokesperson.
She jumped on the chance to defend Donald Trump even before she worked in his White House,
but her support wasn't always so cut and dry.
"Kayleigh how sick of polls are people in New Hampshire right now? … Probably very sick,
especially when they see that Donald Trump is number 2 and doesn't deserve to be there."
Back in 2015, McEnany claimed that she found fault with Trump's message on immigration. Additionally,
during a segment on CNN when Trump was a candidate, McEnany didn't mince
her words when the conversation shifted to the "Celebrity Apprentice" host turned politician.
"I think it's a sideshow, it's not within, uh, the mainstream of candidates."
Eventually, however, McEnany walked back her words once she became press
secretary. She stated that she was led to such an opinion by viewing CNN and,
in her words, "naively believing some of the headlines." She said in a 2020 press briefing,
"I very quickly came around and supported the president."
"I proudly supported this president who I believe is one of the best presidents,
if not the best president this country will ever have."
According to PBS, the Trump administration launched "sweeping" orders against the social
media app, TikTok, claiming that it posed a threat to personal data and national security.
However, some suspected he was simply retaliating for a large prank he fell
victim to. K-pop stans and other TikTok users sold out his June
2020 Tulsa rally — only to leave the event with a whole bunch of empty seats. McEnany
addressed the awkward situation during a press briefing in August.
"The administration is committed to protecting the American people from
all cyber threats and these apps collect significant amounts of private data."
She went on to tell reporters that the Chinese government would not get
away with stealing information about TikTok users.
"TikTok has a documented hin — history
of censoring free speech to conform to CCP propaganda."
But in response, creators on the app made it clear that Trump's attack on the
platform was uncalled for, with technical program manager Patrick Ryan telling PBS,
"This is unprecedented, and it's frankly really uncool."
During the poorly attended Tulsa rally, Trump stated that if the US simply stopped testing for
COVID-19, the number of positive cases would go down. After this comment sparked uproar from many,
it fell on McEnany to address the remark. The result was a fumbled mess of awkwardness.
"The United States has more cases because we have more testing. We are leading the world in testing,
and he was pointing that out that it's a fact that the media readily ignores."
While addressing the comments the following Monday, McEnany claimed
that Trump was only trying to bait the media with his off-the-cuff remarks.
"So are you saying that he told officials to, he told his people
to slow down testing, is not true?"
"It was a comment that he made in jest, it's a comment that he made in passing."
As The Washington Post pointed out, McEnany's attempt to play off Trump's comments as a
joke was a tactic that her predecessor, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, also employed.
"He made a joke, nothing more than that."
As the COVID-19 pandemic continued to escalate at an alarming rate, people looked to the White House
— and journalists looked to McEnany — for answers. During her September 9th, 2020 briefing, however,
McEnany's feud with CNN went from bad to worse. McEnany was asked how then-president Donald Trump
was reckoning with his statement of bearing "no responsibility" to the lives lost to the virus.
"The president never downplayed the virus, once again, the president expressed calm."
Then she turned the blame on Democrats.
"The president was serious about this when Democrats were pursuing their sham impeachment."
Before she could continue, CNN cut away from the briefing, telling viewers that they would not
allow the briefing to air when such falsehoods were being stated. Host Brianna Keilar said,
"That was the press secretary at the White House lying. She said
the president never downplayed the coronavirus."
Not only did McEnany establish a reputation as a fierce defender of Donald Trump,
but she also made it clear that addressing White House reporters daily was not her priority.
According to CNN, when she finally took to the podium after Trump lost the 2020 election,
McEnany answered journalists' questions for the first time since October 1st of that year,
breaking a seven-week streak of zero briefings from the press secretary.
McEnany's return to the briefing room was nothing short of uncomfortable.
McEnany brought up the Mueller investigation into Trump's ongoing communication with Russia,
accompanying the old throughline with more "falsehoods" about voting
irregularities and the response to the pandemic.
In a tense moment, McEnany then claimed that Barack
Obama never accepted Trump's presidential win.
"This president was never given an orderly transition
of power. His presidency was never accepted."
CNN was quick to point out that McEnany's statement from the podium was simply not
true. While Trump did block Joe Biden's transition team from an orderly transfer
of power, Obama's White House never denied Trump's victory.
Donald Trump's distaste for CNN has been well-documented over his years
of political engagement. During a briefing in which McEnany spoke
to Trump's attempts to question the results of the 2020 election, CNN's Kaitlan Collins
applied pressure on the press secretary — which clearly got under McEnany's skin.
"Kayleigh why can't you call on all of us? You haven't taken —"
"I don't call on activists."
As the official briefing came to an end, Collins fired back at the remark,
highlighting the fact that McEnany hadn't held a press briefing in over a month.
"I'm not an activist, and you heaven't taken questions since
October 1st and just took about five, Kayleigh. That's not doing your job."
Deadline reported at the time that, of the big cable news networks,
only Fox News aired the briefing. Both CNN and MSNBC chose not to.
As far as media outlets are concerned, if CNN was Donald Trump's archrival during his presidency,
then Fox News was his Number 1 fan. The right-leaning network regularly supported
the then-president's rhetoric and hosted him as a guest on a number of occasions.
With that in mind, then, you might expect that Fox News would be the
last outlet to cast judgment on McEnany, who served as Trump's talking head for
the last stretch of his presidency. However, that wasn't always the case.
In an awkward moment caught on camera, McEnany was addressing the 2020 election. She claimed
that illegal voting and rigged voting machines were to blame for Trump losing
to Joe Biden. In an incredibly surprising move, Fox News cut her off mid-sentence,
taking viewers back to split screen and muting McEnany's ongoing briefing.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa. I just think we have to be very
clear. She's charging the other side as welcoming fraud and welcoming illegal voting."
Host Neil Cavuto then explained Fox's decision to cut away.
"Unless she has more details to back that up,
I can't in good countenance continue showing you this."
The Fox News host then elaborated that if McEnany did have evidence
to support her claim, he'd gladly welcome the information on-air. Until then, however,
he didn't feel comfortable sharing such a briefing.
"That's an explosive charge to make, that the other side is effectively rigging and cheating."
Perhaps McEnany's greatest strength as press secretary — and now as a contributor to Fox
News — is her unwavering dedication. This could be seen as a positive or negative trait depending
on the person, and while McEnany is sure to have supporters among Donald Trump's base,
she caught a lot of flack online while discussing theories about the COVID-19 pandemic.
In August 2021, McEnany appeared on Fox News and claimed,
amid President Joe Biden's faltering approval ratings, that voters experienced fewer crises
throughout Trump's entire term than in the first eight months of Biden's presidency .
"When President Trump was president, you didn't see crisis after crisis. You just didn't see it."
People on Twitter quickly came after McEnany for her comments,
with many users unabashedly telling her that she didn't know what she was talking about. One
user responded by observing that Trump's term was, quote, "one continuous, rolling, never
ending crisis." Another person chose to direct their criticisms directly at McEnany, writing,
"What's amazing about McEnany is her constant ability to lie with such ease and conviction."